Disclosure
How Backtrace handles sponsored links, affiliate relationships, advertising, and editorial independence.
Backtrace publishes independent coverage of Developers, engineering, DevOps, AI coding, security. This page sets out every commercial relationship that could reasonably affect how you read it — who pays us, how paid links are marked, and what those arrangements are not allowed to buy.
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Our standing disclosure
Some links may be sponsored. Reviews are independent.
That statement applies to everything published at backtracemedia.com, in every format, whether or not an individual piece repeats it.
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How we mark paid and affiliate links
Where an outbound link on Backtrace points to a sponsor or affiliate partner, we mark it at the point it appears rather than relying on a single blanket notice at the foot of the page, and the link itself carries a rel="sponsored" attribute so search engines can tell our editorial judgment apart from a paid placement.
The partners this applies to are: grepai.dev and goblinkly.com. Any link to one of those destinations is treated as commercial and marked accordingly, even where the mention was entirely our own editorial decision.
- Sponsored link
- A link Backtrace was paid to carry. Marked in the text where it appears and tagged rel="sponsored".
- Affiliate link
- A link that may earn us a commission if you buy something. Marked the same way, and the price you pay is unaffected.
- Editorial link
- An unpaid link to a source, document, or product we chose to point at. The default on backtracemedia.com, and never marked as commercial.
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What money does not buy
No commercial relationship decides whether Backtrace covers a topic, who we assign it to, or what we conclude about it. No sponsor, advertiser, or affiliate partner sees a piece before it publishes, and none of them can have a published piece altered or taken down because they dislike it.
A product we earn a commission on gets the same scrutiny as one we do not, and a critical conclusion about a commercial partner runs exactly as written. Where Backtrace cannot cover something in Developers, engineering, DevOps, AI coding, security without a conflict we cannot disclose our way out of, we do not cover it.
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Questions about a specific placement
If a link, placement, or disclosure on Backtrace is unclear — or you think something commercial went unmarked — tell the editorial desk which article and which link, and we will check it and fix the marking if it is wrong.
How Backtrace sources, checks, and corrects the coverage itself is set out separately in our full editorial policy, linked at the foot of this page.
Ask about a placement
Questions about a sponsored placement, an affiliate relationship, or this policy reach the Backtrace editorial desk directly. Name the article and the link, and we will come back to you.